Several hardline members of the Iranian parliament burned a paper US flag along with a paper piece symbolizing the JCPOA deal, reacting to Donald Trump’s announcement that the US is pulling out of the 2015 nuclear agreement. They supported their display, which stumbled a little in the beginning, with shouts of “Death to America” as they held the flaming paper flags above their heads.
A number of Iranian MPs set the American flag & the #JCPOA on fire on the floor of #Iran's parliament while shouting "Down with America." The speaker of the parliament Ali Larijani jokes, "It doesn't [want] to catch on fire either!" #IranDeal pic.twitter.com/9ODlzBmyi5
— Reza H. Akbari (@rezahakbari) 9 мая 2018 г.
#Photos: Iranian lawmakers set fire on JCPOA, US flag after Trump’s exit from Iran deal #Iran #IranDeal #untr_US_table https://t.co/hb1qB83see pic.twitter.com/Q1BS53zZF2
— Iran (@Iran) 9 мая 2018 г.
Although this chanting is heard in the Iranian Parliament from time to time, according to the Associated Press, observers cited by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz couldn't remember the last time they saw the US flag torched inside.
Parliament speaker Ali Larijani called Trump an “egotistical and amateurish politician,” for exiting the deal, according to Mehr News Agency.
“Trump doesn’t have the mental capacity to deal with issues,” Larijani said, according to Reuters.
He also rhetorically asked “Aren’t such idiotic measures so shameful for a country with a claim to global management that even its allies are trying to stop him from taking them and control him?”
The US President announced that the United States would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8 after two years of criticizing the multilateral JCPOA, signed by Iran on the one hand and the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, Germany and the European Union on the other in 2015. The deal promised Iran relief from sanctions in exchange for a commitment not to engage in the development of a military nuclear program.
The president called the JCPOA a "horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made," and suggested that it was "defective at its core." Trump promised "powerful" US sanctions against Iran, which would go into full effect.
Incidentally, he precisely stated that Washington would not allow "a regime that chants 'Death to America'" to access nuclear weapons. Throughout his presidency, Trump repeatedly denounced Obama’s “failed” agreement as one of the worst deals in history. Germany, the United Kingdom and France have repeatedly tried to talk the US into saving the deal; ahead of the announcement the foreign ministers of these countries issued a joint statement stating that they will honor the deal regardless.
READ MORE: 'Today's Announcement Is So Misguided': Obama Slams Trump's Iran Deal Decision
Inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the foremost authority on the matter, have repeatedly affirmed that Iran is in full compliance of the JCPOA. The agency has insisted that Iran "is subject to the world's most robust nuclear verification system."
